Republican Attorneys General Blast Biden Admin’s Proposed Electric Vehicle Regulations

While billed as tightening existing standards for “criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from” certain motor vehicles, id. at 29,186, the Proposed Rule is, more accurately, the next phase in a top-to-bottom attempt to restructure the automobile industry … And the Proposed Rule’s approach will create more problems than it purports to solve. We urge EPA to adopt instead feasible standards that maintain our nation’s air quality without risking consumer safety, economic stability, and national security.

Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hill called the proposed rule an “assault on consumers.”

“By forcing car manufactures to focus on producing expensive, unwanted electric vehicles, the EPA is raising the costs for traditional automobiles, lowering the available stock of the most desirable vehicles, and forcing customers to subsidize expensive EV’s for wealthier consumers,” Hild said in a statement.

The GOP AGs also call on the EPA to reconsider the proposed rule.

The letter continued:

The Proposed Rule is unlawful, unwise, and unsustainable. As one auto industry advisor put it, we need more time to develop solutions together: “one more learning cycle, with the consumer, with the infrastructure, with the technology and [with] the supply base.” Put differently, encouraging quicker market change within the bounds of an agency’s operative statute is one thing. But mandating fast and extreme transformations before supply chains, national security, or consumer confidence have any hope of keeping up is another thing entirely. We respectfully urge EPA to reconsider its Proposed Rule.

Along with Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron and West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey, the attorneys general for the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming signed onto the letter.